San Francisco is one of four American cities in the running if the U.S. Olympic Committee decides to bid for the 2024 Summer Games, officials said.

The process began 16 months ago when the committee discreetly reached out to 35 potential host cities to gauge interest in presenting a bid. Committee leaders spent the past six months holding discussions with a smaller group of potential hosts, and the list was narrowed to four after Dallas and San Diego were scratched.

In addition to San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., will vie to be the first U.S. city to host the Olympics since Salt Lake City hosted the Winter Games in 2002.

"I believe that the San Francisco Bay Area could transform the 2024 Games through our technology and diversity," Mayor Ed Lee said. "Hosting the Games could also inspire and positively transform our region, accelerating and delivering tremendous long-term benefits that help meet our most pressing challenges."

Past U.S. bids to host the Games have proved challenging. Chicago's 2009 bid to host the 2016 Summer Games finished dead last in voting while drawing vocal opposition from locals in the process.

And any bid from the U.S. almost certainly will face stiff international competition, with interest likely coming from places like Rome, Paris and Istanbul. The International Olympic Committee also has expressed interest in bringing the Games to Africa, which has never hosted the event.

The USOC is scheduled to decide whether it will make a bid by early 2015, with the international committee making a final decision on a host city in 2017.